4. Participate
Does your office have holiday parties, happy hours, or birthday celebrations? If so, show appreciation to your workplace and coworkers by participating as often as possible.

5. Decorate
Add your personal style to your workspace. This helps to both make you comfortable and spark conversation.

6. Say Thank You
A simple ‘thank you’ can go a long way. Whether it is an email, Post-It, or even a more elaborate card, be sure to say ‘thank you’ to those coworkers who choose to help you out during the workday.7. Mentor
Take time to share your knowledge with those around you. There is nothing more valuable to a new employee than a trustworthy mentor.

8. Volunteer
Does your workplace sponsor volunteer activities? If so, volunteering is a great way to help your community, while showing appreciation for your workplace.

9. Give Compliments
If you like a coworker’s outfit, tell him or her! Do you like something management has changed, let them know! Compliments can spark conversation and help create a cohesive environment.

10. Be Optimistic
Even if you do not LOVE something about your job, don’t be negative about it. Optimism and critical thinking will help solve problems in the office.

11. Collaborate
Teamwork is something we all get tired of hearing at work. However, collaboration is one of the best ways to show love for your job.

12. Gratitude Board
Inspire your company or department to create a gratitude board. A gratitude board is a space where everyone can participate in leaving notes of gratitude for the office, management, coworkers, or customers.

13. Be Present
Some days you may be just going through the motions at work. Make it a point to be present throughout the day. You will do a better job if you are sure to stay mindful.
14. Be Genuine
No matter the way you choose to show love and gratitude at your job, be sure that it is genuinely how you feel.

Do you have any other ways to show love for your job this Valentine’s Day? Leave them in the comments below!

Adulting is hard…How many times has the alarm gone off, and all you wanted to do was roll over and go back to sleep? Pretty much every morning, right? Somehow though we all get up, get ready, and go to work. Besides the obvious; what is it that keeps us all heading in day in and day out? How can employers learn what employees want and how to keep their workforce happy and motivated, and not dreading the next wake up?

One of the major issues facing employers today is how to keep and retain their employees, as well as keeping them motivated and fulfilled. With millennials embarking on their career journey, and with many baby boomers delaying retirement, employers must find ways to entice a multi-generational workplace.

What Do Millennials Want?

Let’s first take a look at the newest members of the workforce; the millennials. As this group (myself included) spreads their wings in the workplace, it is common for them to hop from job to job post-grad. Businessnewsdaily.com explains further:

Their older, Gen.Y counterparts are out to change the world; but millennials have a different way of doing the changing. They want to feel like they are part of the big picture and are making a difference; if they don’t mesh with the big picture of their employer or feel things are stagnant, millennials will likely move on.

What Makes Baby Boomers Stay?

As millennials enter their careers, baby boomers are continuing at the helms of many businesses; and are extending their time in the work force before retirement. A recent study by AARP finds that 41% of baby boomers have no plans to leave their posts in the near future. There are two major factors that are keeping this group working; the economy and their health. Due to the recession and slow economic growth in the past few years, this generation is staying employed longer to make up for their losses. Though they may have lost in the stock market in the past, for the most part, this group is still healthy and still has much to contribute.

How Do You Make Them All Happy?

The quick and dirty answer is…you don’t. Each person, regardless of their education or generational background, has different needs and wants, and like how mom always says,“you can’t please ’em all.” But, there are several things an employer can do to help improve employee moral, drive, and retention rates.

Recognition

Everyone likes to know that they are doing a good job. That pat on the back lets you know the the work you do is appreciated and can go a long way. For me, this is probably what motivates me most; I aim to please, and want to continue to impress. Letting employees know that they are valued can help increase motivation and decrease the desire to look elsewhere for validation and fulfillment; especially where millennials are concerned. Here are some ideas employers can use to recognize and encourage their workforce:

Tell Them! – Sometimes it’s as easy as that, a few words about the good work they did on a project or the passion they show for their work can do wonders.

Special Treats – Has an employee been working diligently to complete a big proposal? Recognize their diligence with a special treat like a gift card to their favorite lunch spot, or if your company can swing it, maybe tickets to a special event coming to town.

Additional Responsibilities – This may sound counterintuitive, but if you recognize an employee has the skill and drive it takes to complete a certain task, give it to them. Trusting them to leave their “comfort zone,” take on a new challenge, and recognizing their ability to learn and advance can really motivate employees who express the want to grow.

Interesting Work

I’ve worked a lot of menial repetitive jobs in my day, (in my defense these were high school/college era jobs) and can tell you there is nothing that makes me dread working more, and want to look for an alternative to the monotony, than work that doesn’t interest me. Believe me I know that these “boring” jobs are necessary; but sometimes you need to break up these “uninteresting” tasks and do something more challenging or different. There are many ways to prevent boredom and burn out; here are a few suggestions:

Unrelated Work – Is your company big on giving back? Pull one of your employees and have them organize a company fundraiser. Give interested employees the ability to work on a project outside of their daily tasks. It will give them a break from the funk they may be in.

Outside Learning – Employees do have interests outside the work they do daily; try sponsoring an “activity night” and get your employees using their brain cells as they work on non-work related projects.

Keep Them in the Loop

Millennials want to feel like they are part of the bigger picture. Baby boomers need to be reassured that they aren’t being pushed to the wayside as the younger crowd moves in. Keeping employees “in the know” and active in company culture can help avoid employees feeling alienated and detached. Involving employees in activities would be a good way to reinforce company culture and keep them in the loop; these ideas would be a great place to start:

Company Activities – Like suggested above, organize an activity in which all employees are invited to take part in; maybe a 5k run/walk. Or, again, if your company can accommodate it, plan an outing and get the team together outside of work.

Newsletter/blog – Keep employees updated with key happening in the company by creating an internal newsletter or blog; make it ever more inclusive by letting the employees submit their own content.

As you might have gathered by now, we love ourselves a company outing here at ABG Capital! Our first quarter tradition for the past several years has been to reserve a few lanes at Latitude 360 Pittsburgh and have a bowling party.

Before I tell you all about how much fun we had, check out our new company shirts that the fine folks at Commonwealth Press made for us!

Happy Friday to everyone! 2014 is looking like it’s going to be a great year for ABG Capital and its portfolio companies. Business is going great and we’re planning some awesome things for our employees to take part in this year. As you read in our blog post last week, we were planning on volunteering at the Great Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Unfortunately though, it looks like we maybe have to cancel that volunteering opportunities due to scheduling conflicts with the Food Bank. Our Giving Back Committee will be meeting soon to discuss the initiatives that ABG Capital can take part in in 2014. Some of the things that will definitely be on our list again are the employee payroll deductions that go towards our Make-A-Wish contributions, Headstone cleaning at the National Cemeteries of the Alleghenies and other raffles and fundraisers throughout the year. We’ll be keeping everyone informed of any new activities that we’ll be getting involved in this year!

This week the ABG Capital Office Decoration Committee met to discuss the final touches for phase one as well as get phase two in the works. If you remember from November, we had an Open House to show off our brand new office since the build out was completed. We were able to get a few things on the walls before the Open House, but now we’re kicking it into overdrive and planning on some great things including employee awards, company awards, collages, and much more! Here are a few pictures of the things we currently have displayed in our office…

“The 12 Chimes of Life,” from a book called Live a Thousand Years by Giovanni Livera

A Timeline of our Success: Looking to the Future, Remembering our Past

Stay tuned for more pictures as the art continues to fill our office!

The last thing that I want to mention that you’re going to start seeing more great blog posts coming from us. The first one we have in store for next week talks about how to develop a positive corporate culture. This is something that we put a great deal of focus on and we want to make sure we have employee appreciation day 24/7, 365 days a year!

Welcome back to the Just another Friday at ABG Capital weekly blog post! We hope that you were able to have a fantastic Thanksgiving with your loved ones. We started this week by having one of our Portfolio Companies, InspiraFS, announce their 2014 Annual Plan. Inspira has seen tremendous growth this year and we’re excited to see what they have in store!

The rest of the week was spent getting things ready for the Employee Appreciation Party that we held today. We love our ABG Capital employees and to show them that they do make a difference in our organization, we wanted to treat them to something more than their typical Free Lunch Friday (but we still provided a great lunch from Sunny Bridge Natural Foods). Once that delicious lunch was over, we brought in desert… We had a chocolate fondue fountain and trays stocked with strawberries, bananas, Oreos, pretzels and more! There was a ready to go ice cream sundae bar will all sorts of great toppings, including the fondue. We continued the celebrations by announcing the winners of our Chinese auction and then concluded with our traditional Scotch Friday. Overall, it was a great day, focused on showing our employees that we truly do appreciate everything they do.

As you know, the holiday season is upon us and with that comes changes in office hours. ABG Capital will run on a normal schedule for the rest of the month, but the office will be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. We’ll also be having our annual ABG Capital Holiday Party next Friday, and we all can’t wait for that!

The last note that we’ll make about the holiday season is about the Holiday Raffle Basket that we’re selling tickets for. If you want to know more information on how you can get a ticket, where the proceeds go, or what’s in the basket, visit this blog post. Just remember that we’ll be drawing the winning ticket on December 20.

And now… Drum roll please… We are thrilled to announce that ABG Capital has ranked No. 6 in the 2013 Best Places to Work in PA list! Last year we ranked No. 14 and from feedback we took away from the surveys we were dedicated to making our organization better. We’re proud to say that we achieved that goal!